


Twelfth Night

by loveandwar007



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-07
Updated: 2012-03-07
Packaged: 2017-11-01 15:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandwar007/pseuds/loveandwar007
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eleven times he's tried. Eleven times he's failed. Now on this night, Fakir finally has the resolve to bring her back. But at what cost?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twelfth Night

Once upon a time, there was a young writer who sought to defy the odds. He wrote of truth, beauty, freedom, and most of all, love. However things took a turn for the worst when the writer fell for a beautiful young woman he could never have. For the force of an illness not even love could conquer had taken its toll on the girl. As she lay dying in his arms, she asked the heartbroken writer for one last request: to tell the story of their love to the world…

***

Eleven…eleven stories…eleven times he had sat back, satisfied with his work, proud of his ancestry and the power and talent that had come with it. Only to glance out at the dark lake each of those eleven nights and still see the small, fragile yellow duck gliding along the water’s surface, as graceful as she had once been long ago. Eleven times over the course of three years, he had attempted to bring this girl back to him—and eleven times, nothing happened. He had failed. Just as he had as the knight from The Prince and The Raven, he could not do anything significant to save the story, or to save their fates from being, although intertwined, doomed to tragedy. 

Fakir stood up suddenly, shaking with uncontrollable rage. His trembling hands, stained heavily with ink, grabbed the papers and flung them into the fireplace. The papers floated amongst the leaping flames and curled into charred blackness as the young writer of nearly twenty years old let out a roar of fury and smashed the desk lamp to the floor, where it shattered. Alone…he was now completely alone in the silent darkness. Leaning against the wall, he slid down to the stone floor in despair. Hugging his knees to his chest, he buried his face in them. It was so hard to believe that there was a time Ahiru was nothing but a mere annoyance to him, an obstacle in the form of a loud, gawky thirteen-year-old girl standing in the way of his attempt to protect his one true friend Mytho. But as Fakir knew better than anyone, you cannot judge a book by its cover. 

Throughout their journey to save Mytho and defeat the monster Raven, the duck-turned-girl proved strong and resourceful, the ballerina princess who defied her fate. Ahiru had saved Mytho and given Fakir himself the strength to carry on, to keep writing no matter how much it pained him to see her suffer in the final battle. He would kill himself with his own sword before he would let anything happen to that girl. Because he had discovered something else nearer the story’s end. Fakir had lived in this darkness for so long since his parents’ deaths, and this girl had become his one ray of pure sunlight breaking through the clouds. She was loving and kind, with a heart that greatly surpassed her tiny human form. Ahiru was everything…everything Fakir was not…and he was deeply in love with her. 

The tears streamed from his eyes over his bare arms as Fakir bitterly sobbed through his gritted teeth. It was true, and it was something he had never voiced aloud. He loved her from the moment she had sweetly and ever so innocently mimed the ballet gesture for I love you in his direction. And what was his reaction? To yell at her, like he always had, to verbally abuse and push her away. It was a wonder she stayed with him, living in the lake beside his cottage where he lived and wrote. He gripped his hair in his hands—he had always behaved so monstrously towards her.

A gentle touch on the back of his hand made him glance upward. There sat the small duck on his knee, gazing pensively at him. She must have heard me scream before, Fakir thought, cursing himself as he gently gathered the creature into his hands.

“Eleventh time wasn’t the charm, I guess,” he said quietly to the duck, who continued to look concernedly back at him. Slowly she raised one of her wings and wiped the tears from his cheeks as her own blue eyes welled up. It must have hurt her just as badly to see him in so much pain. Fakir smiled and kissed the top of the duck’s head, to which she looked back at him surprised. He had never kissed her before, and it immediately filled her little body with a warmth that glowed from deep inside her heart and radiated to the tips of her wings. Because, although unable to express it in words, she cared for him so much as well:

Oh, Fakir… she thought in her head, wishing with all her heart she could speak to him again. I’ve tried so hard to accept being a duck again. I mean, it really is who I am. And the only reason I wanted to be human in the first place was so I could help Mytho, hoping he would love me as much as I…I used to love him. But it’s all changed now. I still have these feelings of love, but they’re not for Mytho anymore. You saved me from Drosselmeyer’s imprisonment; you saved me in the final battle against the Raven. You saved me from myself, Fakir…when you found me in the Lake of Despair. We gave eachother the strength to finish Mytho’s story, and gave him his happy ending with Rue. Why…why can’t we have that same happy ending?

“Why can’t we have that same happy ending?” Fakir whispered to her, holding her against his chest.

“You can,” came a ghostly voice from the grandfather clock against the far wall. Fakir jumped up from the ground, causing Ahiru to quack loudly in surprise and fly over to perch on the window sill. 

“I know that voice,” Fakir said, glaring at the clock as it opened to reveal the dark shadow of a man in flamboyant, brightly colored wear. He silently stepped from the inside of the clock onto the floor, the firelight revealing his gaunt, wrinkled face curled into a sneering grin. Ahiru quacked loudly at the sight and waved frantically in Fakir’s direction. “It’s alright, Ahiru…I know who this is,” the young man said in a husky voice. “Herr Drosselmeyer, I presume?”

“Correct,” Drosselmeyer replied with a slight bow. “And I must be in the presence of my descendant.” He frowned, “The one who finished The Prince and the Raven.”

“Yes,” Fakir said coldly.

“You ruined my ending,” Drosselmeyer scowled, shaking his head.

“You ruined my future, so I guess we’re even then!” Fakir said loudly, stepping closer to the intruder. 

The deceased man chuckled, “Now aren’t we overreacting just a bit? How on earth did I ruin your entire future? After all, you get to carry on my legacy, finish my stories that were never given endings. It’s the role of a lifetime, boy.”

“You know what future I mean,” Fakir said much more quietly. Drosselmeyer looked from him over to the duck on the windowsill, who quacked weakly upon his gaze. 

“My boy, this was decided long before my death,” he said, his wild eyes traveling slowly back to Fakir. “Princess Tutu was fated to meet an unhappy end.”

“What good is having the power to finish these stories if I can’t change fate?!” Fakir shouted, slamming his fist down on the writing desk. “She never did anything to deserve this, so why are you still toying with our lives?!” He was now so close to Drosselmeyer he could smell the dead man’s foul breath. “Ahiru played her part, and she never complained. If anyone in this story deserved to get everything they ever wanted, it was her.”

“Why do you insist on searching for a happy ending for h—?” Drosselmeyer stopped, his look of confusion morphing into one of sinister understanding. His chuckle grew into a full grown laugh as he saw the answer written plainly, deep in Fakir’s emerald eyes. “You’ve fallen in love with her…”

“Quack?!” Ahiru nearly fell off the windowsill as Fakir continued to glare at Drosselmeyer, stunned at the words the dead man had spoken. She held her breath, waiting for Fakir to answer. Her heart sank with every passing moment…had she misunderstood his intentions, the promise he made her those three long years ago?

“So what if I have?” Fakir finally said, softly but firmly, and Drosselmeyer’s face became one of surprise, his wild eyes dancing in their sockets. The younger man glanced briefly over at the little duck, whose blue eyes were tear-filled yet contented. He loves me…Fakir really loves me…

“This is uncanny!” the eccentric man announced, now striding the room in a frantic pace. “Absurd! Completely unexpected! The knight has fallen for the duck—this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“We aren’t pawns in your little game anymore, Drosselmeyer,” Fakir said, and the old man ceased his pacing. “You don’t control us. I am the one destined to finish these tales…including Ahiru’s.”

“Oh, you really think you could get rid of me that easily?” Drosselmeyer laughed. “The good news is now that you have admitted your love for the little duck, you can find the power in yourself to transform her back to human form.”

“I…I can?” Fakir blinked, hardly daring to believe his ears. That’s it? All I had to do was admit that I loved Ahiru and I could bring her back? His bewildered expression quickly turned to one of distrust. It’s too easy…

“It’s too good to be true, isn’t it?” the storyteller chuckled. “There is, of course, a miniscule catch. The only way you can write her back into a girl is by asking yourself one question…how much are you willing to lay down for the little duck’s sake?”

Fakir looked up at him, his heart pounding against his chest. It was a most difficult question—and yet so simple for him to answer, he almost spoke against his own will. “Everything,” he replied with barely a moment’s hesitation.

“Then that is all you need,” Drosselmeyer replied, chuckling once more to himself as he slipped back into the dark passage through the grandfather clock without another word. Fakir stared after him for a moment, then went back to the window where Ahiru looked up at him, so happy yet confused.

“Get some sleep now, Ahiru,” Fakir said softly, patting her head. She nodded, nudging his hand affectionately with the tip of her bill before she flew out onto the lake. “I’ll take care of everything…”

***

It was all it took. Because the writer was willing to risk everything within him to bring back the girl, it was so. The little fragile duck felt the water rise up around her where she sat on the surface. Consuming her body in a wall of lake water, only for a few moments, it fell away to reveal the girl the author had waited so long to see again. She stood before him in a dress of flowing white, her bright crimson hair rippling gently with the breeze, smiling only when she found the eyes of her beloved gazing back at her. In a voice as sweet and gentle as her heart, she spoke his name and called him to her…the man who sacrificed it all to see her once again.

Fakir laid down his quill for now the twelfth time, this time not rising from his chair to go to the window. Because he already knew he had ruined it, letting his emotions get the better of him as he wrote. Smiling only when she found the eyes of her beloved gazing back at her…her beloved.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” he shouted, covering his face with his hands. “Just because she’s your beloved doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re hers.” For all he knew, Ahiru could still have feelings for Mytho, thinking only of him, Fakir, as a treasured friend. It was not impossible for that to be true in the slightest—but he knew his strong, stone cold heart would break if that were the case.

He was jolted out of his thoughts as a blinding light glowed through the window, and he jumped up in shock. The light was coming from the lake, the spot of the lake where he had seen Ahiru floating mere minutes ago. The water was rising, and Fakir’s eyes widened as what had not happened for three years was now taking place...what he had written was coming true. Without another thought, he ran out the door and skidded to a halt at the lake’s edge, watching the wall of water rise higher and higher, swirling and changing in a kaleidoscope of colors before falling away and revealing…

Fakir’s knees nearly gave out from under him; a sharp gasp escaped his throat. Where the little duck once was now stood a young girl, no older than sixteen—a girl Fakir knew all too well, yet had not seen in so long. It was Ahiru, still petite as she had ever been, but slightly more grown-up in other areas. Her bright red-orange hair was tied in that long plait down her back, and rather than being naked as in her previous transformations, she wore a flowing white dress that a ballet dancer might wear. She seemed stunned, staring down at her hands that were once wings, feeling her smooth ivory skin that was once yellow feathers. Finally, after what felt like forever, Ahiru’s gaze traveled up and found Fakir’s, and they both stared, unable to believe this was truly happening. With a soft smile, her lips parted to form one single word.

“Fakir?” Her entire face lit up like the morning sunrise as her call to him grew stronger, “Fakir! Fakir!”

“Ahiru!” He was already sprinting across the water towards her at the same time her bare feet sloshed through the lake towards him until they finally met near the shore. Stopping just short of eachother, Ahiru flung her arms out to embrace her savior, but hesitated upon seeing Fakir’s intense, unreadable gaze upon her.

“I…um…” she stammered, lowering her arms slightly. “I know you don’t really like to be hugged, b—” She inhaled sharply as she felt herself being lifted off the ground. Overcome with ecstasy, Fakir had swept Ahiru up in his arms and swung her around as she clung tightly to his neck.

“You’ve done it, Fakir,” she whispered in his ear as he returned her to earth. All of the pain and agonizing over the past three years coupled with the immense joy at seeing Ahiru again was almost more than Fakir could bear. Ahiru could feel him start to tremble and she held him closer, hearing him weeping softly into her shoulder. After several long moments, they broke apart at arm’s length, Fakir wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

“S—sorry about that,” he muttered. “I’m just…I’ve—”

“I know, Fakir,” Ahiru said, brushing away a tear he had missed with her thumb. “It’s been a long time, and you’ve done so much for me.”

“No I haven’t,” Fakir said, hanging his head. “It took three years and a lot of wasted paper and ink before I could bring you back—” He abruptly closed his mouth before the words “to me” were spoken, for he was still uncertain of her feelings for him.

“But it happened!” Ahiru exclaimed happily, stepping back so he could get a good look at her. “I’m here, aren’t I?!” Fakir had to smile; she had not changed a bit. Her enthusiasm and lively antics were as present as they had ever been, still speaking in that cheerful voice to him. That voice that for a long time, he had only heard in his most vivid dreams, calling out to him. But this was not a dream—the cold splash of lake water in his face as she ran to him had assured that much.

“You’re right,” Fakir finally said, wrapping his arms around her tiny waist and pulling her close. “I missed you so much.”

“Oh Fakir, I have so much to tell you,” Ahiru said softly. Leaning her head against his chest, she could hear his steady heartbeat; feel his slow, even breathing. For three years, she had wanted to tell him how she truly felt, but had been unable to speak in anything but loud quacks. Now that she had the ability to talk again…she still could not seem to formulate what she wanted to say. “Fakir…what you said to Drosselmeyer late last night…did you—?”

“I’m sorry, it was as if he—he forced it out of me,” Fakir answered, resting his head on top of hers. “Ahiru, if you don’t think that I—”

“So you didn’t mean what you said?” she asked, looking up at him with tears in her eyes.

Fakir stared at her incredulously, “Do you have a brain in that hair of yours?” He tilted her chin up so he could see clearly into her deep blue eyes. “I meant every word. It’s how I was able to change you back again, once I confessed that I…” He clasped her hands in both of his and brought them to his chest as Ahiru held her breath. “I love you, Ahiru…but, I can understand if you don’t love me.”

“You idiot!” Ahiru shouted, throwing herself at Fakir and knocking him flat on his back in the grass. “How could you possibly think that after all we’ve been through?! After all that time we spent together to help Mytho, after all those times we saved eachother, after that promise you made to me at the bottom of the lake, how could you ever think that I don’t love you back?!”

“So…” Fakir said, panting under Ahiru’s weight pressing on his stomach. She smiled down at him, tears falling from her eyes and landing on his cheeks.

“I love you…Fakir,” Ahiru said, in a voice so sweet she might as well have sung the words to him. “I love you so much. I should have told you back then, but…you’re just so hard to read sometimes. Well okay, most of the time, and I just didn’t know for sure if you—”

“Idiot,” Fakir murmured quietly—but he smiled, and Ahiru knew he meant it endearingly. She sat back on her knees as Fakir lifted himself up from the ground, “Now do me a favor…and allow me to do what I should’ve done three years ago.” He brought his ink-stained hand up to cup her face, his fingertips grazing her bright red hair. Leaning her face against his gentle touch, Ahiru closed her eyes and parted her lips ever so slightly, hoping that Fakir was about to do what she thought he was. A sudden jolt of warm tingling shot through her entire body as a soft pair of lips met her own. Bringing her own hands up to rest in his thick, dark hair, she kissed Fakir back tenderly, wanting to get lost in this moment forever. But after a brief period, though it felt much longer for both parties, their first kiss ended with two soft, contented sighs. It had been a long time coming, and they both knew it.

“Ahiru?” Fakir asked quietly, standing up and walking out towards where the lake water met the shore. Turning around, the lake water lapping at his feet, Fakir reached out his hand to Ahiru, “Won’t you please come and dance with me?”

Ahiru smiled at him as she got up from the grass and joined him at the shore. “Of course, my knight,” she said, accepting his hand as she rose to her tip toes.

“Writer now, remember?” Fakir said with a smirk, taking her other hand and extending it over their heads. She spun around on her toes as a graceful pas de deux commenced between them. It brought back memories for both of them, wonderful and painful moments they had shared in the past, but also professed the love and friendship they shared and would continue to share.

“You’ll always be a knight to me,” Ahiru said as Fakir grabbed her firmly around the waist and hoisted her up high over his head. She lifted her arms up towards the sky as the morning dawn began to approach, a wide smile lighting up her cherubic face. At that moment, she felt more graceful and beautiful than she ever had as Princess Tutu, Fakir’s strong hands carrying her, never letting her fall. She brought her arms down as Fakir lowered her back to the ground, landing on her feet. He knelt before her on one knee, in the true fashion of a knight, and brought his hands to his chest with a smile—the ballet mime for I love you.

“Well, isn’t this just romantically boring?” came the booming voice of a most unwelcome visitor. The pair spun around to see Drosselmeyer coming down from the cottage, a gleeful expression on his face.

“You!” Fakir exclaimed angrily, jumping up from his knees.

“Yes, ‘me’,” Drosselmeyer said mockingly, advancing towards both of them slowly. His eyes fell on the young girl in the elegant white dress, “It’s been a long time hasn’t it, little duck?”

“Not long enough, Drosselmeyer,” Ahiru said. Fakir could not believe how sweet her voice still sounded, even as she spoke coldly to the old man inching ever closer to them.

“Oh come now, let’s just let bygones be bygones,” Drosselmeyer said, extending a hand to her. “I was merely doing my job, writing stories to entertain—mostly myself. Besides, you have never been one to hold a grudge, have you child?” He took her hand suddenly, and Ahiru wrenched it out of his grip, stepping backward with a “Quack!”

“You keep away from her!” Fakir cried out, pulling Ahiru against him and holding her protectively—even though he was quite sure Drosselmeyer was not about to harm either of them. “You have no business being here. It’s over—I’ve done it. I changed the fates you assigned us, and gave Ahiru a happy ending. And I’ll stay with her. By her side…forever.”

“Oh will you now?” Drosselmeyer said slyly. There was a grimace on his face that left an uneasy feeling in the pit of Ahiru’s stomach. With a flourish, the old man whipped out several pieces of parchment and held them up.

“My story,” Fakir whispered.

“Indeed,” Drosselmeyer said, perusing rapidly over it. “Quite well-written, very romantic—which is good, I suppose, if you’re into that sort of thing—ah, here we go.” He held up the final page to his eye level and read the ending allowed, “Because the writer was willing to risk everything within him to bring back the girl, it was so… she spoke his name and called him to her…the man who sacrificed it all to see her once again.” He grinned over the parchment, “Now there’s the tragedy I’ve been seeking in you, my talented descendent.”

“What are you talking about?” Fakir asked, completely taken aback over what in his writing had made the deceased author so happy. 

“Your sacrifice to save the little duck, of course,” Drosselmeyer replied, tossing the pages to the ground. “You can’t just write something that good and leave it hanging in the air, it must serve purpose.” His wild eyes gleamed, “You hadn’t realized you wrote those words, did you? They came from somewhere so deep in your heart and soul, that laying down your life for this girl was a subconscious will t—“

“What do you mean ‘lay down his life’?” Ahiru asked, her hold on Fakir tightening.

“The ultimate sacrifice to save you…his own life.” Drosselmeyer brought his hands together a few times in a sign of applause, “Well done, boy.”

“Fakir…” Ahiru looked up at him with fear in her eyes, shaking her head back and forth. “You couldn’t have…this…it can’t be true!”

“Damn it,” came Fakir’s stunned reply, looking from Drosselmeyer to Ahiru—then closed his eyes shut tight and gritted his teeth, “Damn it!”

“No!” Ahiru screamed.

“It’s all there, little duck, written in permanent ink,” Drosselmeyer stated joyfully. “Ah, what a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare—to be reunited with the one you love, only to lose them once again…forever.” 

A sudden clap of thunder was heard, and Fakir shouted out, grabbing his chest in pain.

“Fakir!” Ahiru cried loudly as he slumped over slightly, then straightened up again almost as quickly. 

“You sick bastard,” Fakir growled, wishing he had his sword to drive through the dead man’s chest.

“Don’t you try and turn this one on me,” Drosselmeyer pointed at him, “You have no one to blame but yourself. When you said ‘everything’, you did mean everything…didn’t you?”

Fakir panted heavily for a few moments, before giving his shattering response…”Yes.”

“Fakir, you can’t! You can’t do this!” The girl’s desperate cries were drowned out by another clap of loud thunder, and now she had to bear Fakir up as he flinched even more painfully. 

“It’s too late now, little duck,” Drosselmeyer chuckled. “Even now as he stands before you…he life is slowly being sucked from him and drained away…ah, what a glorious ending…” Ahiru did not even notice the storyteller’s departure, as forked lightening lit up the sky, followed by thunder. Fakir grunted in pain as he crumpled at her feet, clutching his chest with both hands.

“Please, please don’t let this happen, Fakir,” Ahiru pleaded, kneeling beside him, tears rolling freely down her cheeks. “I’ll change the story myself. I’ll go back to being a duck permanently this time and never become human again.” Her voice rose in panic as Fakir’s face began to drain of color. “I’ll die in your place, Fakir! I’ll do whatever it takes, just please don’t leave me!” Cradling him in her arms against her chest, Ahiru began to cry softly, rocking him back and forth. With every bit of strength that had not yet left him, Fakir wrapped his arms around her trembling form and held her firmly in an attempt to comfort her.

“You listen to me—listen,” he said in a tight, scolding tone, and Ahiru stifled her sobs as Fakir struggled to sit up and look at her. “I didn’t write you back into this world so you could die in my place, moron. I did it so you could live a long, fulfilling life as a human being—and that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”

“Fakir, I can’t…” Her voice trailed off as she sniffled loudly, and Fakir reached up to wipe away her tears.

“Yes you can,” he said weakly. “You’re going to grow up, you’re going to go to school, you’ll go keep Charon company for me and—” Another flash of lightning lit up the sky and rain began to fall steadily upon them. Fakir faltered for a long moment as he grimaced at the intense pain in his chest, then leaned forward to kiss Ahiru on the forehead. “And then…you can do something else for me.”

“Anything,” Ahiru whispered, holding his face in her hands tenderly.

“You can tell my story,” Fakir finally said, his voice barely audible now over the pattering of rain around them. “The story of the knight who cast down his sword and picked up the pen, which finished the prince’s story and saved the little duck. The writer who returned the duck to her human form so she could live happily thereafter—”

“—with the writer!” Ahiru cut him off stubbornly, feeling angry despite her sorrow. “It’s not fair! I wanted to return to human form so I could be with you, and now…oh please Fakir, don’t die!” She burst into tears as she flung herself forward, burying her face in his chest as Fakir wrapped his arms tightly around her. “I love you! I can’t go on without you, Fakir, don’t—don’t die!”

“Shh,” came Fakir’s soothing reply, kissing the top of her head as she continued to weep helplessly. “I love you too, you loud annoying idiot. Don’t think I don’t know how it feels to look on and watch someone you love die. But all we can do is go on, live our lives to the fullest in their name. It’s what I always wanted to do…for my parents’ sakes…” Ahiru looked up at him and saw tears in his eyes mingling with the rain; Fakir had never willing brought up his parents’ deaths before. “I hope they’ll be proud of me…”

“Of course they will,” Ahiru whimpered as Fakir slumped even more weakly against her. “Maybe even more so than I am.” Resting his head on her chest, Fakir let out a contented sigh and slowly closed his eyes.

“Fakir? Fakir?!” Ahiru cried in panic, shaking him slightly as the booming thunder reached her ears. He stirred a bit with a moan, and she breathed a sigh of relief as he opened his eyes again. Her heart continued to pound heavily upon seeing how pale and deathlike his face had become. 

“Relax, moron, I’m still here,” Fakir said with a smile as Ahiru brushed his hair back away from his face.

“This is all happening so fast…” she choked out.

“Guess we better make the most of whatever time we have left then,” Fakir said in a raspy voice. Tilting his face up towards her, their lips met once more in a moist kiss, this one much longer and more passionate than the one before. All of their feelings, all of their devotion came together in that one lasting moment in time as they completely lost their senses within eachother. Ahiru lightly pulled back and gazed into her knight’s weary emerald eyes. Fakir had never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve—but there in his eyes, all of his feelings for her were crystal clear. From the gentle smile on his face, she assumed her eyes bore that same faithfulness.

“Promise me…” his voice was hardly even a whisper now, “…that you’ll pass on my own tale…won’t you?”

“Yes,” Ahiru responded without a moment’s hesitation. “I will, Fakir…I promise.”

“Thanks…idiot…” Fakir’s eyes closed once more, drawing the largest breath of all. In a long exhale, he whispered “Thanks…for changing me…” The last of the air left his lungs as he lay peacefully, a slight smile never leaving his lips.

“Fakir?” Ahiru gasped softly when he failed to take another breath, “Oh no…” She pressed her hand to his chest, but no pulsing heart could be felt, no warm breath came from his mouth. As swiftly as she, the simple little duck, had become a girl again, Fakir had been taken from her…had sacrificed himself so that she may prosper. It was worse than any tragedy she could have ever envisioned. 

The rain that had begun so suddenly had stopped, revealing the orange and purple horizon on the lake. Ever so gently, Ahiru laid Fakir’s lifeless form on the grass and lay down beside him. She brought both of his arms around her as she rested herself across his chest, intending to fulfill the word she had given him.

“And so ended the tale of the faithful knight...” She spoke calmly and refined despite the tears flowing from her eyes, as if telling a bedtime story to a young child. “…he who was always loyal, putting the welfare of those he cared about before his own. No matter how much pain and suffering dwelled inside his heart, he kept on fighting the eternal battle between the good and evils of the world…” Ahiru paused, her voice catching in her throat as she fought to stay strong. Running her hand over his chest, she took his own limp hand and brought it to her lips…

“The eternal battle between destiny…and free will…”

***

“Well said, little duck,” the echoing voice of Drosselmeyer came as he watched the girl pour out her grief onto the dead body of the knight. “Well said indeed…”


End file.
